


ah, hold out both your hands (catch me or you're dead)

by Anonymous



Series: movin along, no, i wont settle down (until im locked behind bars or kicked outta town) [1]
Category: Dream SMP - Fandom, Video Blogging RPF
Genre: Adoptive Parent Phil Watson (Video Blogging RPF), Alternate Universe - Different First Meeting, Alternate Universe - Foster Family, Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Alternate Universe - Real World, Ambiguous/Open Ending, Family Dynamics, Foster Care, Gen, Hurt/Comfort, IRL Fic, Mentioned Phil Watson (Video Blogging RPF), Older Sibling Wilbur Soot, Sibling Bonding, Sleepy Bois Inc as Family, TommyInnit Angst (Video Blogging RPF), TommyInnit-centric (Video Blogging RPF), Underage Drug Use, Wilbur Soot and TommyInnit are Siblings, no beta we die like l'manberg
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-01-28
Updated: 2021-01-28
Packaged: 2021-03-12 14:07:00
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,086
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29011749
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/
Summary: "Why're you up at this time of night?" Tommy bites out. He’s not sure why he’s trying to carry a conversation with this guy, he did just shut him the fuck down, after all- but if there’s something he can’t stand, it’s silence. And if it turns out that taking the piss outta this guy'll be better than this mind-numbing quiet, so be it."Why are you?" The man shoots back.Touché."I asked first, asshole.""I asked second."Touché x 2.AKA: Wilbur and Tommy first meet on a roof. It goes about as well as you'd expect.
Relationships: No Romantic Relationship(s), Wilbur Soot & TommyInnit
Series: movin along, no, i wont settle down (until im locked behind bars or kicked outta town) [1]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/2163195
Comments: 13
Kudos: 326
Collections: Anonymous





	ah, hold out both your hands (catch me or you're dead)

**Author's Note:**

> this is just gonna be the usual disclaimers associated w/ fics like these, so feel free to skip over it. 
> 
> firstly: if any of the cc's mention they don't like this kinda stuff i'll take it down, based on the characters- not the people themselves, don't send this to them, blah blah blah i'm sure you know the drill by now.  
> secondly: everything written here is based on my own experience with foster care, but it's been a few years since i, personally, have dealt with the system. memories from that time in my life are blocked out n such, so don't expect this fic to be a shining beacon of accuracy lmao
> 
> foster care au, set pre-covid.
> 
> tw for emeto and underage drug use
> 
> enjoy!

The window sounds with a click as Tommy pulls it open. There's no sensor on the sill, ready to alert everyone in the vicinity to its opening, nor a lock that keeps it wedged shut. Phil _is_ aware that he's a flight risk, hell, it's the first thing anyone who even looks at him is notified of- so this lapse in judgment, whether intentional or not, doesn’t go unnoticed. He catalogs it away with everything else he's learned about the man over the past few days. 

Once the window is forced open, he peeks his head out, just for a moment. The cool October air is refreshing against his face and the slight breeze that’s kicked up ruffles his hair. It’s a stark contrast to Phil’s house- his room is stuffy and warm, and while Tommy would never complain about a warm place to stay... it can all be too much, at times. Wary of being seen, he ducks back inside quickly, still careful not to hit his head on the bottom sash of the window. Cold air follows him back into the room, but Tommy’s used to colder weather than this, so he suppresses a shiver, pulls his hoodie tighter around him, and returns to what he’s been doing.

He reaches into the crack between his mattress and the wall, feeling around blindly for something for a few seconds, and… _gotcha_. His fingers snag on soft and well-loved fabric, and he gently pulls the object out of its hiding place. 

It’s a stuffed rabbit.

Ok, well. It isn’t _just_ a rabbit.

There's a rip down the back, made to look like the regular ol' wear and tear that all of his belongings get subjected to (it's hard not to get a little roughed up around the edges in the system.) Instead, he's hidden a lighter, 2 pre-rolled joints, a little baggie of weed, a switchblade, and a roll of cash, bound with a hair tie, inside of it- packaged with the rest of the stuffing. It's pretty ingenious, if he does say so himself, (and he does.) Like a little fucked up travel pack. 

Tommy grabs one of the joints and the lighter and hastily stuffs the rabbit securely back into its place nestled between his bed and the wall, and then tiptoes silently over to the open window. He sits on the sill and lets his head rest against the frame, the wind blowing against the back of his neck and sending a shiver down his spine.

He takes a quick glance at the inside of his room as he does, eyes lingering on the closed door as if it’ll burst open any second. It's the first time he's actually _looked_ at the room, not just seen it in passing. With all the hustle and movement associated with the first day spent with a new foster family, he hasn’t actually been in his newly dubbed home that much.

It's unusually drab, Tommy notices now that he’s actually looking at it, even for someone who's just moved in. Typical. It's not like he wanted a spiderman comforter cover or balloons and a cake, he isn't fucking five after all, but maybe a tasteful painting of a tree or some shit would've been nice. Even one of those stupid "It gets better!" posters would be pretty nice to see right about now, even if he'd only deface it. There's hardly anything on the walls, actually. It's all so mind-numbingly plain. 

He's about to swivel around so his back is to the door and stretch his legs out into the open night air, because fucking christ is this window cramped. He's a growing boy, you know? He needs space to stretch out, and even if this window is conveniently person-sized, he can practically feel the crick in his neck that he’s going to have tomorrow morning. Besides, even _he_ isn't stupid enough to smoke inside, and facing this depressing-ass room is kinda bumming him out. But something or more specifically _someone_ surprises him out of his (well-earned, thank you very much) self-pity.

"Hello down there!" a voice calls, approximately 3 feet above him, coming from outside, and a few things happen in quick succession. 

  1. On reflex, he drops absolutely everything in his hands, and the joint and the lighter fall onto the carpet, unharmed.
  2. Jumping approximately 8 feet into the air at the words, caught red-handed, he hits his head on the top of the window frame. 
  3. Startled, and with pride bruised by both the bump on his head and the fact that he’s been caught fucking up on his first night, he scrambles, looking wildly to find the source of the voice. And falls backward, out the open window
  4. He flails his hands as he does, which is supposed to help him regain his balance or grab onto something, anything- but only succeeds in helping him look like an idiot. 



He keeps his eyes closed tight for a solid few seconds, bracing to hit the porch below, before opening them tentatively and realizing he isn't actually falling or in a mangled pile of limbs on the ground. His happiness at being unharmed is unfortunately short-lived, though, because he also realizes that he's desperately clutching someone's hand, but both of their fingers are sweaty, and said person's grip is slipping. 

His feet, which are currently dangling uselessly below him, scrabble find to purchase against the brick. Once his feet connect with the stone, without so much as a second thought as to what he’s doing, he pushes back with as much effort as he can muster and kicks off of the side of the wall. The person whose hand he’s clinging onto for dear life lets out a confused shout as he’s propelled farther away from his window, into the open air, and then swings back and hits the house with a thump, the force knocking the wind out of him.

He can feel the brick against his cheek, can feel the way his lungs gasp for air as he unpeels himself from the wall. He uses his other hand, the one not currently holding him up, to grab above him blindly, eyes still closed against the force of the impact, until... _there_.

He feels the telltale bump of the window sill jutting out against the house and clings to it with whatever strength he has left. The person above him, who’s hung on for an impressively long time now, uses the last of their strength to haul Tommy up one final time, and his elbow and forearm catch on the sill. 

The person’s grip finally gives, and he can hear the distant pop of a joint being pulled out of its socket and the crash of someone falling on their ass against the roof. Tommy takes his newly freed hand and grabs the inside of the sill as he slips incrementally without the person supporting him. And then, with more concentration than he’s spent on possibly anything else in his life so far, he pushes himself up, palms flat against the wood. (just like he’s getting out of a pool) Pulling his torso onto the ledge and tumbling into his room, his legs kicking uselessly all the while.

As soon as he’s on solid ground, his breathing kicks in again, and he takes quick, gulping breaths, swallowing down air like he’s never gonna get it again. His arms burn with overexertion, a delayed reaction, the strain of holding up his entire body taking its toll on them. 

Fuck. He still feels like he’s dying, even if he’s not dangling 20 feet off the ground. The knot in his stomach hasn’t loosened since he took the tumble out the window, and his panicked breathing is doing nothing to help his sad state. He gets up, even though his head is spinning and his eyes can’t see quite straight at the moment and his spit is disgustingly warm in his mouth- and pushes out of the room, stumbles on unsteady legs that can barely support him, and makes it to the bathroom just in time to empty the contents of his (admittedly already pretty empty) stomach into the toilet bowl.

Fuck.

* * *

He staggers back to his room after quietly dry heaving and then repeatedly rinsing his mouth out with the tap water from the sink. It’s no use, really. He can still taste the stomach acid in his mouth, can still feel the bile in the back of his throat. But it’s better than nothing, supposedly.

Tommy practically falls onto his bed, not even bothering to change out of his sweat-stained clothes or get under the comforter. In that moment, the shitty mattress he’s been given feels better than anything else he’s ever slept on. He gets about five minutes of peace though, tops. Because someone won’t stop knocking against his fucking window. He assumes it's something else at first, maybe the start of some wack dream, something along those lines. But the knocking only gets louder and more persistent- and Tommy’s sleepy grumbles at being kept up progress into muffling a frustrated scream into his pillow and holding it over his ears, trying to block out the insistent fucking knocking. 

Eventually, tired, shaky, and oh-so-pissed, he gets up and stumbles over to the window, and pokes his head out cautiously, ready to tell _someone_ to fuck off. A voice sounds from somewhere above him, calling quietly in the general vicinity of his window.

“Hey, up here!” He looks up at the roof, squinting into the darkness, trying to locate the owner of the voice. A hand gets extended to him, probably the same hand he had been desperately clutching 30 minutes earlier- he would recognize it now _if_ he weren’t so fucking focused on not dying a terrible death at the time. 

As his eyes adjust to the dark, he can start to see the outline of a man perched somewhere above him. The guy makes a beckoning gesture with his extended hand, and Tommy mumbles something about sleep and near-death experiences under his breath before he’s taking the offered hand and clambering up onto the roof with the guy. His legs still feel like jello, and the man’s hand is shaking slightly, but they make it work, and Tommy finds himself sitting a few feet away from the guy as they both look out over the neighborhood. 

They’re both quiet for a while. After what feels like hours of sitting in tense silence, the guy tries to initiate conversation for the third time that night. 

“No love for your knight in shining armor? I dislocated my shoulder to save you, you know.” The dude says, waggling his eyebrows when he catches Tommy staring. Tommy rolls his eyes and looks pointedly at his beaten sneakers. The man’s joking, but he’s had enough owing people to last two lifetimes, and Tommy really doesn’t feel up to joking around tonight. Puking your guts out will do that to someone.

“No one asked you to, fuckface.” He snaps back, probably a little harsher than he originally intended, but his tone does its job and the man backs off as they fall back into an awkward silence. 

"Why're you up at this time of night?" Tommy bites out. He’s not sure why he’s trying to carry a conversation with this guy, he did just shut him the fuck down, after all- but if there’s something he can’t stand, it’s silence. And if it turns out that taking the piss outta this guy'll be better than this mind-numbing quiet, so be it.

"Why are you?" The man shoots back.

Touché.

"I asked first, asshole."

"I asked second."

Touché x 2. 

"I was smoking." Tommy mumbles, intentionally vague. The man- well, really, he's more of a teen, now that Tommy gets a closer look. His limbs still long and gangly with youth but his voice is deep with the telltale signs of early adulthood. He hums at Tommy's response. Tommy stares at him incredulously for a few seconds, but it becomes clear that he's not going to respond.

"Aren't you going to tell me what you're doing on the roof?" The man grunts noncommittally for a second time and gives a kind of half shrug, but doesn’t say anything else. Tommy scowls slightly. "You're supposed to, you know. After someone tells you. You respond in kind. It's proper etiquette."

"You’re one to be lecturing me on proper etiquette, kiddo. After I just saved your scrawny ass, no less."

Tommy really scowls at that. "Hey, asshole! I'm a big man! I'm not no kid."

The man smiles, the first genuine display of emotion he’s shown all night that doesn’t seem entirely half-assed. _Even_ if it feels patronizing. "A big man, huh? How old are you, then?"

"...15." 

"15, huh? isn't 15 a little young to be smoking?" The man's tone is light, like he's joking. Tommy can feel the frown begin to slip from his face, so he plasters it back on. Their bickering has an easy practiced rhythm to it, like they’ve been friends their whole life. And as much as he wants to dislike this kid, there's something about him that puts Tommy at ease. And he really doesn't like that.

They sit in silence for a few minutes, it's not uncomfortable, per se, but Tommy still fidgets with the hem of his sweatshirt nervously.

"Wilbur." The man sitting next to him finally says, unprompted. It throws Tommy off, momentarily. He wasn’t exactly expecting the conversation to continue.

"Wilbur?" 

"My name. It's Wilbur."

"Wilbur." He tests it out for a second, seeing how the name feels on his tongue. Wilbur doesn’t respond and Tommy has nothing else to say to him. He’s too tired to carry the conversation.

They fall back into silence. A minute passes. Two minutes. Two and a half.

“Well?” Wilbur asks finally, breaking the tense silence.

“Well.” Tommy mimics through gritted teeth.

“Aren’t you going to tell me your name, then, big man?” 

“Nope.” Tommy pops the P as he says it, and pointedly doesn’t look at the other man, but he can practically feel Wilbur’s eyes narrow.

“Hey, wait a second. Which one of us was the one talking about,” He screws up his face and raises his voice in an extremely crude impression of how Tommy speaks, “Responding in kind! Proper etiquette!” He drops the voice and unscrunches his face, “And all that, yeah?”

Tommy resists the urge to tell him on no uncertain terms that his voice definitely does not fucking sound like that, and instead wags his finger playfully and says “Rules don’t apply to me, Wilbur. I’m above the law.” He sticks out his tongue, if only to hide the shit-eating grin beginning to spread across his face. Wilbur rolls his eyes, but it’s fond, if anything.

“How about a proposition, then, kid,” Tommy’s about to interject that he’s not a kid, thank you very much, but that man’s voice leaves no room for interruption. “You tell me your name, and I, in return, don’t tell Phil about our little rendezvous tonight.”

The energy shifts as soon as the words are out of his mouth.

“You wouldn’t,” Tommy gapes. 

“Oh but I would.” Wilbur shoots back.

“I don’t believe you. You don’t look like a snitch.”

“You wanna bet on that?” They're at a stalemate. Tommy stares Wilbur down, properly sizing him up for the first time. Trying to gauge whether he’s telling the truth or not. Wilbur simply sits there, looking down at him, and smiles smugly. Fucking prick.

“I’d beat the shit out of you.” It’s weak, even for him. A last-ditch attempt at masking the growing anxiety in his voice. His voice doesn’t warble as he says it, at least. Which. Small victories and all that.

“After I just saved your life, you dick?” Wilbur is the first to break eye contact, ending their staring match. He looks out over the sea of houses stretching below them, windows shut tight, braced against the cool fall air. Tommy suddenly becomes acutely aware of how thin the fabric of his hoodie is, and how chilly it really is. “Besides,” Wilbur pipes up, “I’d win in a fight between us anyway.”

Tommy scoffs but doesn't reply, instead electing to pick at his nails as he pointedly ignores the threat hanging over his head. They stay like that for a while, until the sun begins its sleepy ascent into the sky, slowly peeking above the horizon line. A window opens a few houses down. Someone heats up their car. A dog gets let out into a backyard. People prepare for their daily morning commute, and the silence stretching between them shifts from tense to something resembling comfortable.

Wilbur is once again the first to move, after an indeterminate amount of time. He yawns and stands up quietly, dusting off his pants, and stretching his arms above his head, effectively breaking whatever little moment there was between them. 

“Well, this has been very enlightening. But I'm afraid I do have more pressing matters to attend to. People to meet, places to be, the whole shebang. I'm sure you know the drill, Tomathy.” Tommy stops dead at the nickname, all plans of making fun of Wilbur’s stupid exaggeratedly fancy vocabulary suddenly the last thing on his mind.

“How do you know my name?” He snaps back quickly, and he can practically see Wilbur’s smile, like he’s lording this tidbit of information over him.

“Phil’s fostering you, dumbass. We’ve met before, actually.” _Oh_.

Huh.

“Why’d you ask, then?” Wilbur shrugs, an easy smile playing its way across his face, like it was always meant to be there.

“Just to see you flip out.” He replies, and Tommy grumbles at that.

“You’re not gonna tell him, are you?” He asks, speaking up, and Wilbur’s silhouette shakes its head, backlit against the sunrise.

“Course not. Your secret’s safe with me, kid.” He winks at Tommy, and Tommy looks back down to his nails at that, their edges permanently bitten down after years of mistreatment. 

He doesn’t trust this kid, not even for a second, but saving him from certain death (or a broken bone, at least) must count for something, so he doesn’t comment. He’ll hold his tongue and hope this stranger keeps his word and if not… well. He’ll just have to beat the shit out of him, as promised.

When he looks up again, Wilbur is gone. 

**Author's Note:**

> thanks for reading!! this was supposed to be 1k words.. dunno where it got out of hand lmao
> 
> because this is posted anonymously, it's so much harder to deal w reposting... anyway uh if i ever post this on another site ill update these endnotes, until then just assume everything on tumblr, wattpad, ect is a repost 😅
> 
> i have been revising this and revising this and revising this over and over again and at some point i just gotta post it, close the laptop, and walk away. im gonna try not to revise this after posting, but i might come back and edit out a few typo's or puntuation mistakes.
> 
> title is from the vocaliod song matryoshka by hachi! 
> 
> comments are greatly appreciated!! im considering making this a series, but if there's no demand for this kinda thing then there's really no point lol


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